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David Cunningham // Gray Scale LP

David Cunningham // Gray Scale LP

¥2,990
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This is a reissue of the 1976 debut album by Northern Irish experimental musician David Cunningham.

Minimal music that focuses on mistakes and deviations that occur during repeated performances, recorded by friends from art school who can't play instruments.

Labels and other worksplease use this form. ///Click here to see more Superior Viaduct releases available at Tobira.

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First time vinyl reissue of David Cunningham's 1976 work 'Grey Scale' by Superior Viaduct. 

Superior Viaduct:

"David Cunningham was born in Ireland in 1954. His work ranges from pop music to gallery installations including several collaborations with visual artists. His first significant commercial success came with The Flying Lizards' single "Money," an international hit in 1979.

Originally released in 1976, Cunningham's first solo album Gray Scale has become a landmark statement of DIY minimalist composition – continuing in the vein of the wild explosion of arthouse experimentation from the early '70s. Cunningham, then a student at the Maidstone College of Art in Kent, drafted fellow student non-musicians and (using whatever instruments available) crafted an endlessly shifting sonic palette with an improvisor's keen sensitivity to space, texture and tone.

As Cunningham states in the liner notes, his approach was to "pursue something (which may appear trivial or meaningless) so rigorously or relentlessly to the point that it reveals something new."

Cunningham was influenced by live performances he was attending at the time by English composers Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman as well as free improvisors Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, David Toop and Paul Burwell.

The inaugural release on Cunningham's own Piano label, Gray Scale was indeed "something new" in 1976. The artist quickly integrated his experimental sensibilities to produce art-rock pioneers This Heat, whose debut appeared on Piano in 1979. His popular success performing as The Flying Lizards (with two electro-punk albums on Virgin during the New Wave era) was presaged by this seminal work of fascinating sound collage and tonal freedom. First-time reissue."

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track listing:

  1. Error System (BAGFGAB)
  2. Error System (C Pulse Solo Recording)
  3. Error System (C Pulse Group Recording)
  4. Error System (E Based Group Recording)
  5. Error System (EFGA)
  6. Ecuador
  7. Water-systemized
  8. Venezuela 1
  9. Guitar system
  10. Venezuela 2
  11. Bolivia

Artist: David Cunningham

Label: Superior Viaduct

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This is a reissue of the 1976 debut album by Northern Irish experimental musician David Cunningham.

Minimal music that focuses on mistakes and deviations that occur during repeated performances, recorded by friends from art school who can't play instruments.

Labels and other worksplease use this form. ///Click here to see more Superior Viaduct releases available at Tobira.

---------------------------------------

First time vinyl reissue of David Cunningham's 1976 work 'Grey Scale' by Superior Viaduct. 

Superior Viaduct:

"David Cunningham was born in Ireland in 1954. His work ranges from pop music to gallery installations including several collaborations with visual artists. His first significant commercial success came with The Flying Lizards' single "Money," an international hit in 1979.

Originally released in 1976, Cunningham's first solo album Gray Scale has become a landmark statement of DIY minimalist composition – continuing in the vein of the wild explosion of arthouse experimentation from the early '70s. Cunningham, then a student at the Maidstone College of Art in Kent, drafted fellow student non-musicians and (using whatever instruments available) crafted an endlessly shifting sonic palette with an improvisor's keen sensitivity to space, texture and tone.

As Cunningham states in the liner notes, his approach was to "pursue something (which may appear trivial or meaningless) so rigorously or relentlessly to the point that it reveals something new."

Cunningham was influenced by live performances he was attending at the time by English composers Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman as well as free improvisors Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, David Toop and Paul Burwell.

The inaugural release on Cunningham's own Piano label, Gray Scale was indeed "something new" in 1976. The artist quickly integrated his experimental sensibilities to produce art-rock pioneers This Heat, whose debut appeared on Piano in 1979. His popular success performing as The Flying Lizards (with two electro-punk albums on Virgin during the New Wave era) was presaged by this seminal work of fascinating sound collage and tonal freedom. First-time reissue."

++

track listing:

  1. Error System (BAGFGAB)
  2. Error System (C Pulse Solo Recording)
  3. Error System (C Pulse Group Recording)
  4. Error System (E Based Group Recording)
  5. Error System (EFGA)
  6. Ecuador
  7. Water-systemized
  8. Venezuela 1
  9. Guitar system
  10. Venezuela 2
  11. Bolivia

Artist: David Cunningham

Label: Superior Viaduct